Not Okay to Cry

 "Running behind a flowing bubble, he was looking adorable so we decided to capture the moment but then he hit the table with his tiny toes and he cried his soul out." 

Said Arav's mother while showing an ugly picture of Arav to all his cousins in which he was crying. He was three then and now he's eight. "OMG, Arav just look at yourself" said his cousins to tease him and then they all laughed. A little boy was bothered by a look he carries while he cries.  

A few years passed and now Arav is thirteen. Fell down in the playground, got his knee injured and cried in front of everyone. A teacher came and said, "oh are you crying? Come on, brave children don't cry. Get up and take a break." 

Again he experienced the same agony when he was fourteen. "Is he crying? Poor Boy" his classmates muttered, when he got scolded by a teacher. He felt humiliated and rushed to the washroom. He cried standing in front of a mirror. Looking at himself crying and thinking how unacceptable it is for me to cry, like it's a sign of weakness and may be holding on to your bottled up emotions is somehow better than letting your tears flow down your cheeks with whatever bothering you at a moment. He heard the footsteps, they were his friends. He immediately wiped his tears and washed his face so nobody could tell he was still crying. "Are you alright Arav? Have some water." His friend said. "Yeah, let's go back to class" Arav replied.  

Every time when Arav cried, people made him feel vulnerable or told him, "crying isn't something brave people do." and "he looked pathetic crying" like crying isn't a human thing or emotion to be expressed. He continued holding back his sensitive side and turned out to be the way the society expects him to be.

He no longer cry now, at least not in front of people. He might go numb or isolate himself or probably pretend, he doesn't care but never shows his sensitive side. 

In his teen years, while watching an emotional movie with his friends, he avoids paying attention so that his eyes can stay dry. He keeps seeing off sessions as short as possible and about a lot more matters he managed to tackle his emotions with a practical aspects in order to avoid getting affected deeply with any of them.

In the end, he became a MAN, you know. Keeping a constant check on his sensitive side, when he still see people crying their heart out, he cannot decide who is truly strong and who isn't.